Designs of the Year 2012 exhibition - Design Museum

The Design Museum’s annual ‘best of’ showcases an eclectic mix of the past year’s most innovative design projects from around the world.  Leading design industry minds have selected work within seven categories; Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Product and Transport.

Tuesday 24 April will see the announcement of one winning project from the 89 strong long-list.  You can see the full list of nominated works here.

We couldn’t be pinned down to one favourite on our visit to the show, but we did like...

www.designsoftheyear.com

Noma Bar and Outline Editions' Cut It Out project (as seen at Design Event Festival 2011!)

www.designsoftheyear.com

1.3 Chair by Kihyun Kim, made from compressed balsa wood 

 

www.designsoftheyear.com

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, at The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum

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Comedy Carpet by Gordon Young and Why Not Associates

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Face Substitution (in real time!) by Arturo Castro and Kyle McDonald

www.designsoftheyear.com

Hepworth Wakefield by David Chipperfield Architects

You can catch the show until 4 July!

British Design 1948-2012, Innovation in the Modern Age at the V&A

In the 2012 spirit of celebrating all things GB, the V&A’s latest exhibition focuses on British design.  

The show bookends 60 years of British design with the ‘austerity games’ of 1948 and this year’s Olympic effort.  The mammoth task of representing six decades of design is well met with 350 objects which include furniture, product, graphics, fashion, surface, jewellery, industrial and architecture pieces, together with fine art, craft and photography.

The exhibition begins setting the modernist optimism of the 1951 Festival of Britain against the opulence of Elizabeth II’s coronation, and looking at the consequences for design.  Pieces include original drafts of Calvert and Kinneir’s road signage scheme, the Queen’s Flowers of the Field’s of France state gown and early ranges from Habitat and Heal’s.

The second section is titled Subversion, and recognises the irreverent spirit of British creatives working in different disciplines and time periods; from graphics (such as Peter Saville’s sleeves for Factory Records), to fashion (including Tommy Nutter suits) and Studio Ceramics (like Richard Slee’s Drunk Punch).

The final gallery is dedicated to the drive for innovation in British design; the use of new technologies and the forging of new industries.  James Dyson’s upright vacuum cleaner and Troika’s Falling Light sit alongside statement architectural projects, and the development of the British game design industry and advertising sector.

Photography isn’t permitted in the show, so we can’t give you a preview, but you can take up this excellent opportunity to see some ingenious moments in British design until 12 August.